FIRE UP THE GRILL: House Republicans who’ve grilled university presidents over antisemitism on campus will tomorrow turn their attention to the small public school district in Berkeley, California. The superintendent there, Enikia Ford Morthel, will be on the Hill answering to allegations of anti-Jewish hatred in her schools alongside public education leaders from New York City and Montgomery County, Maryland. This rare appearance of K-12 leaders before a subcommittee of the House education panel promises to mirror the committee’s adversarial confrontations with college officials — which helped prompt the resignations of Penn President Liz Magill and Harvard President Claudine Gay. Ford Morthel’s district of just 9,000 students in the deeply liberal city of Berkeley drew national attention in February, when the Anti-Defamation League and Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law demanded a federal civil rights probe into what they characterized as unchecked antisemitism by students and even teachers. They expanded their complaint on Monday, and announced today that the U.S. Department of Education had opened an investigation into the matter. The groups said “Kill the Jews” was written in a school bathroom stall; that a remark that “Jews are stupid” was overheard by a Jewish first-grader; and that a teacher displayed a fist punching through a Star of David during a lesson on Israel and Palestine, among other incidents. They also said parents who’ve complained about biased instruction have had their children moved into other classes. “Then you had the rest of the students left in the classrooms with these teachers free to continue indoctrinating them with this very anti-Jewish, antisemitic rhetoric,” Robin Pick, a Brandeis Center attorney who is overseeing the complaint, said in a phone interview. One teacher has already been placed on leave, according to the updated complaint. The pro-Israel groups’ claims, however, are disputed. A collection of pro-cease-fire Jewish parents has organized a media campaign casting the complaints as a “right-wing attack on education” that is rife with falsehoods and conflates opposition to Israeli military operations with hatred of Jewish people. The ADL and Brandeis also cited criticisms of Israel and the ADL in their letters to the Education Department. One page decries a learning material that allegedly framed Israeli activity as “ethnic cleansing” and “settler colonialism,” while another points to a lesson that referred to the ADL as Israel’s “attack dogs” in the U.S. “As somebody who is a descendant of people who survived the Holocaust, I just think that it makes a mockery of what antisemitism is because not everybody identifies with Israel,” said Leah Simon-Weisberg, a Jewish parent of a Berkeley High School student who is part of the Jewish parent group that is contesting criticism of the district. “This feels like I'm in an upside down world, because it is the Palestinians and the Arab and Muslim families that are feeling uncomfortable.” The district was one of the three chosen to testify because it has had “some of the most egregious examples of antisemitism,” said House Committee on Education & the Workforce spokesperson Nick Barley. Such national scrutiny has caused Ford Morthel to be squeezed from multiple sides. The Brandeis Center and ADL have critiqued her as not being forceful enough in condemning expressions of antisemitism. Meanwhile, Molly Sampson, a parent whose child has Palestinian heritage, said the outside complaints have sparked fear of disciplinary action among teachers, fostering a “culture of silence” in her daughter’s classrooms around discussing Palestinian issues. The district declined to comment beyond an April statement confirming that, although Ford Morthel “did not seek this invitation,” she would attend the hearing. “As our Superintendent has shared many times, Berkeley Unified celebrates our diversity and stands against all forms of hate and othering, including antisemitism and Islamophobia,” spokesperson Trish McDermott said in the statement. IT’S TUESDAY AFTERNOON. This is California Playbook PM, a POLITICO newsletter that serves as an afternoon temperature check on California politics and a look at what our policy reporters are watching. Got tips or suggestions? Shoot an email to bjones@politico.com.
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